The ‘It’ Director Sheds Some Light on His Film’s R-Rating

With one of the most-viewed trailers of all time, it appears that Andres Muschietti‘s adaptation of Stephen King‘s Itis set to be the rare crossover hit in the horror genre. Fans who haven’t even read one of King’s books are excited to see a group of lovable losers take on Derry’s most infamous - and inhuman - killer. Those familiar with the original novel and television miniseries are also curious: how will Muschietti’s film work without the dual storytelling between past and present? What does It look like when filtered through a modern sensibility?

It seems we’re about to find out. In a recent conversation with French publication Mad Movies - translated by The Losers’ Club Facebook group and shared by both Bloody Disgusting and Heroic Hollywood, because it takes a village to raise a murderous space clown - Muschietti explained the boundaries that he and New Line placed on his adaptation of King’s novel:

This is an R rated movie. I’m very happy about that, because it allows us to go into very adult themes… From our very first discussion with the people from New Line, it was understood that the movie was gonna be rated R. Of course it was already crazy that they started a story revolving around the death of children. But if you aimed for a PG-13 movie, you had nothing at the end. So we were very lucky that the producers didn’t try to stop us. In fact it’s more our own moral compass that sometimes showed us that some things lead us in places where we didn’t want to go.

What a strange approach to take. On the one hand, we’ve talked Hollywood’s newfound fascination with R-rated movies to death, so I can understand why some slick executive would nudge Muschiette to use the film’s rating as a major talking point. On the other hand, though, who cares if a Stephen King adaptation is R-rated? King’s novels certainly contain their fair share of violent and disturbing imagery, but he’s never leaned overmuch on blood and violence to make his novels terrifying (especially with It). Unless, of course, you push for the book’s infamous child orgy sequence. “Nothing at the end” indeed, Andres.

Here’s the full plot synopsis for It:

When children begin to disappear in the town of Derry, Maine, a group of young kids are faced with their biggest fears when they square off against an evil clown named Pennywise, whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.

The film will star Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, and Wyatt Oleff. It will come screaming into theaters on September 8, 2017.